Saving Mr. Banks Interview: Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks Talk Disney | Collider SHARE TWEET 0 Saving Mr. Banks tells the tale of when Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) invited Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to his studio in Los Angeles in 1961, to discuss his interest in obtaining the movie rights to her beloved book and character. While there, Travers, who had been resistant for 20 years, spent two weeks uncompromisingly fighting every idea and suggestion, on the road to bringing this classic to the big screen. At a press conference to promote the film’s release, co-stars Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks talked about bringing the essence of these people to life without doing an exact imitation, what they learned about these individuals from playing them, the characters they were each obsessed with, growing up, and what P.L. Travers might have thought of this film. Thompson also addressed whether there might ever be another Nanny McPhee movie. Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Question: In bringing these two real people to life, what were the little breadcrumbs that you used to follow the trail to get the essence of who these people were, rather than doing imitations? TOM HANKS: There was a bit of a vocal cadence and a rhythm that Mr. Disney had, that took awhile to figure out. A lot of the little anecdotes that we found, specifically from the likes of Richard Sherman, were already in screenplay, like Walt’s cough. Walt smoked three packs a day. Richard Sherman said that you always knew when Walt was coming to visit your office ‘cause you could hear him coughing from down by the elevator. So, you’re able to put that stuff into it, and it just ends up being one of the delightful cards in the deck. EMMA THOMPSON: My search for P.L. Travers was very breadcrumb-y. She went everywhere, so she was like going into a maze. Around some corners, you’d find this terrible monster. And around other corners, you’d find a beaten child. She was the most extraordinary combination of things. I suppose that was the scary thing.

In films, we often get to play people who are emotionally, or at least morally, consistent, in some way, and she wasn’t consistent, in any way. You would not know what you would get, from one moment to the next. Tom, what were the challenges of playing such an iconic individual, and how did your research inform your performance? HANKS: There was a lot of anecdotal information that kept coming to us. There were people who knew Walt, and they still have access to the studio ‘cause they still have their cards that let them in. They searched us out. Richard Sherman was literally a never-ending fountain of stories, of facts, of anecdotes, and of bits and pieces of everything that had happened. And Diane Disney Miller, his daughter, gave me unlimited access to the archives and the museum in San Francisco. I made a couple of visits there. And I had a lot of video and audio that I could work with. The only handicap was that a lot of it is Walt Disney playing Walt Disney. There was a cadence to the man.

He believed everything that he said about his projects and he completely embraced the possibilities of wonder in the movies that he was going to make, as well as the rides he was going to come up with and the things that he was going to build. So, I had a great road map, in searching it out. Emma, you won an Oscar for a screenplay and you played a nanny in Nanny McPhee, and here you’re playing a person who is helping write a screenplay about a nanny. Did any of that affect your approach to this film? THOMPSON: P.L. Travers used to talk a lot about Buffalo Bill. While I was researching her, I found out that she referred to Mary Poppins in very similar ways. She had understood that there was a spot of Zen mastery, in the way in which she worked. This is my theory, but because women have traditionally been locked out of the superstructures or the power structures that we all live in, Buffalo Bill is a very good example. I’ve always thought that Nanny McPhee was essentially a Western, only set in a domestic environment. And P.L. Travers felt the same way about Mary Poppins.

There’s a very real connection, in the sense that the outsider comes into the place where there is difficulty, solves the problem using unorthodox methods, and then must leave. That’s a Western. And because women don’t have that kind of power, the Western form, which is an essential myth, emerges in the female world in the nursery. Why do you think P.L. Travers, who can be so hurtful and so mean, is so much fun and irresistibly adorable? THOMPSON: That is the first time I’ve heard her called irresistibly adorable, but I’ll take it. For those of us who’ve been so well brought up, we’re all so bloody polite, all the time, particularly Americans. I think, quite a lot of the time, we act in conflict with what we really feel. In the film, both of your characters are pretty obsessed with this book and this character. In your own lives, is there something that you either wanted to do, as an actor, or that you were obsessed with? THOMPSON: Just off the top of my head, which is probably the best place to start, it was always Sherlock Holmes, with whom I was deeply in love and really wanted to be.

If you’re a female, a lot of the heroic models are, in fact, male. One of my first questions to everybody, as I was getting older was, “Who’s the female hero? What does she actually do?” HANKS: I always wanted to play Lestrade of Scotland Yard ‘cause he’s a buffoon that gets to wear a uniform. I thought that would be fun.” What’s it ike to be Tom Hanks, as a grandfather? Do you take your own grandkids to Disneyland? HANKS: I took them to Disneyland, on the day that we shot in Disneyland. An interesting thing happens, as a grandparent. You see no reason, whatsoever, that your granddaughter shouldn’t be delighted to take a ride on the Winnie the Pooh Adventure. It’s Winnie the Pooh! It’s fun! It’s Pooh Bear. It’s Kanga and Roo and Owl. It’s Christopher Robin. It’s gonna be a blast! She’s gonna remember it for the rest of her life. My granddaughter was terrified by the noise and the big spinning bears.

She will now be haunted for the rest of her days, by this first image of Winnie the Pooh, in a loud, short, herky-jerky ride that her grandfather forced her to do, on the day he played Walt Disney in Disneyland. That is just a sample of the fantastic job I do as a grandparent. Tom, what did you learn about Walt Disney from doing the movie, that you didn’t know before? HANKS: He had the most discussed, photographed, analyzed, diagrammed, tested mustache on the planet. I think documents actually went to the United States government to discuss the angle of the shave and how much mustache was going to be there. I don’t look too much like him, but there is an angular figure you can get from the boxiness of the suits and playing around with various pieces of hair, in order to get there. Walt Disney, at this time in his life, was very much already Walt Disney. He was the accomplished artist and industrialist that he was. The surprised was how much of a regular dad this guy was.

Disneyland came about because he used to spend every Saturday with his two daughters and, after awhile, here in L.A., he ran out of places that he could take his two daughters. There were pony rides over where the Beverly Center is now, and there was the merry-go-round in Griffith Park, but that was it. And he was sitting and eating peanuts on a park bench in Griffith Park while the girls were on the merry-go-round, and he said, “God, there really should be a place that dads can take their daughters on a Saturday in L.A.” From that, Disneyland was born. He smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and he died of lung cancer, which is just one of the grim realities of the way the world operated back then. As an actor, director and producer yourself, how do you relate with the conflict of Mr. Disney wanting to tell this marvelous story that he has in his mind while having to deal with a temperamental author? HANKS: When you try to bring a story to life, it starts in your head and you see possibilities for it, but it’s just one damn thing after another.

At this point, Walt Disney was pretty much used to getting his way because everybody loved him and he was the guy who invented Mickey Mouse. In the creative process, which is really what this movie is about, you come to loggerheads and you just have to keep the process moving forward, even if that requires jumping on a plane and flying to London. It’s a good thing it’s fun, otherwise it would be too much work. In the film, P.L. Travers made what she thought of Disney’s Mary Poppins very clear, but how do you think she would have responded to Saving Mr. Banks? THOMPSON: I reckon this was a woman who kept on saying, “I don’t want anything. I don’t want a biography. I don’t want anyone to know anything about me.” Meanwhile, she kept everything she wrote and sent it the archives at Brisbane University. I’m certain she felt that she was an important contributor to the artistic culture, and wanted to have it preserved. I think what she would say about this is, “This is an absolutely ridiculous film! It has no relationship, whatsoever, to what was happening. But, it’s about me.

And the clothes were really rather nice.” I think that’s what she would have said. Emma, is there any possibility of another Nanny McPhee movie? THOMPSON: We had a lovely time making the second one, and it went down very well in my country. We came here and did this big two-week tour of all the States, which was just wonderful because I had never been to many of the States, and everybody was very enthusiastic. And I got to the end of the tour, and was pretty tired. I was on my way home. I was in New York, literally packing my bag to go home, and the phone rang. I said, “Hello. How’s it going?” This was opening weekend. They said, “Well, uh . . .” I said, “What?! What?!” They said, “Well, the box office is not as good as we wanted it to be.” I said, “Okay. What do you mean?” They said, “We projected that it would take 14 million dollars. It only took 9.7 million.” I said, “I don’t understand what that means. 9.7 million dollars seems like quite a lot of money, really.

But, you seem to be suicidal. I better take that as evidence that there won’t be another one.” And that’s how it works. It doesn’t matter how good the movie is. What matters is what it takes during the opening weekend. It’s slightly distressing sometimes. Saving Mr. Banks opens in limited release on December 13th. Related Content Saving Mr. Banks by John Lee Hancock |Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell | 786936839739 | DVD | Barnes & Noble® Videos Overview The story of how Walt Disney courted P.L. Travers into letting him option the rights to Mary Poppins is brought to the screen in this non-fiction drama starring Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson , and Colin Farrell . A doting father, Walt Disney (Hanks) promises his adoring daughters that he will bring their favorite fictional nanny Mary Poppins to the big screen. Little does Walt realize that surly author P.L. Travers has no intention of seeing her most famous creation bastardized for moviegoers, a fact that makes keeping his promise a difficult endeavor.

Years later, however, when Travers' book sales begin to slow, dwindling finances drive her to schedule a meeting with Disney to discuss the film rights to the beloved story. For two weeks in 1961, a determined Disney does his absolute best to convince Travers that the film version of Mary Poppins will be a wondrous and respectful adaptation, meanwhile the author only grows more convinced that she has made the right move in preventing the proposed film adaptation. Later, just when it begins to appear that the rights to Mary Poppins have slipped through his fingers, the ingenious Disney reflects back on his childhood, and realizes that a sensitive chapter from Travers' youth could be the key to clinching the deal. Bradley Whitford , Paul Giamatti , and Jason Schwartzman co-star. Advertising Editorial Reviews All Movie Guide - Jason Buchanan It's a curious fact of fiction that authorial intent is occasionally lost to audience interpretation, and in director John Lee Hancock's elegant biographical drama Saving Mr. Banks, we discover how it took one of the 20th century's most cherished storytellers two decades to learn the secret of the book he longed to translate to the silver screen.

The result is a Disney movie for the young at heart -- an absorbing meditation on the power of imagination, and a thoughtful tale of transformation and growth. And though its mature themes of death and grief may be lost on younger viewers, they're presented with a level of restraint that gives them gravity without weighing down the film's infectious sense of wonder. A doting father, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) once promised his adoring daughters that he would bring their favorite fictional nanny, Mary Poppins, to life on the big screen. Little does Walt realize that surly author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) has no intention of seeing her most famous creation bastardized for moviegoers, a fact that makes keeping his promise exceedingly difficult. Years later, when Travers' book sales begin to slow, dwindling finances drive her to schedule a meeting with Disney to discuss the movie rights to the beloved story. For two weeks in 1961, a determined Disney pulls out all the stops to convince Travers that the film version of Mary Poppins will be wondrous and respectful; meanwhile, the author only grows more convinced that she made the right move in preventing the proposed adaptation.

Later, just when it begins to appear that the rights to Mary Poppins have slipped through his fingers, the ingenious Disney reflects back on his own difficult childhood and realizes that a sensitive chapter from Travers' youth could be the key to clinching the deal. Developing a compelling angle for a biographical drama can be tricky business for a screenwriter, but by combining the stories of Walt Disney and P.L. Travers, scribes Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith find a hook that gets to the heart of two real-life figures who built their careers on entertainment for children. By intercutting the events of those fateful two weeks in 1961 with moments from Travers' childhood, Marcel and Smith explore the source of the author's vivid imagination while simultaneously exposing the core of her famous character. That's no simple task, but thanks to the efforts of a talented cast and a focused director, the two writers achieve their goal with style and creativity to spare.

Of course, two-time Oscar winner and three-time BAFTA winner Thompson plays no small part in bringing that vision to life, but praise must also go to newcomer Annie Rose Buckley for her endearing portrayal of the frigid author in her formative years, as well as the versatile Colin Farrell as her well-meaning yet deeply flawed father, whose vivid imagination planted the seeds of creativity in the young girl, and whose premature death resulted in the creation of Mary Poppins. Although it's heartbreaking to see the starry-eyed child watch her father drift away as her mother falls into deep despair, it's a joy to see the adult Travers learn to let go while being swept off her feet by a man whose creative legacy would prove to be enormously influential even long after his death. Despite the considerable efforts undertaken to pull off a convincing double period piece, no one with working eyes will be tricked into believing that Hanks is the spitting image of old Uncle Walt. But like the best actors, Hanks uses mannerisms and practiced vocal inflections to capture his subject's essence.

Likewise, though some will no doubt cry foul over the decision to gloss over some of Disney's less endearing peccadilloes (such as his heavy smoking habit, which is only briefly addressed in passing), this isn't an expose but a gently endearing tale of persistence and perseverance. If all of this makes it sound like only a few select filmmakers and a handful of actors were responsible for making Saving Mr. Banks an affecting drama, then it would be a sad oversight not to mention the trio of Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman, and B.J. Novak as, respectively, screenwriter Don DaGradi, lyricist Richard Sherman, and composer Robert Sherman. The scenes in which the scribe and songwriters strive to impress the stuffy author not only provide Saving Mr. Banks with some of its most memorably amusing passages, but also serve to highlight the ways in which their positivity and creative vision prompt Travers down the path of self-reflection. Paul Giamatti also manages to make a big impression in a minor supporting role as Travers' limo driver -- a personable man who breaks down the distant author's emotional barrier by quietly voicing some of his most intimate fears.

A film about Walt Disney in the early 1960s would be nothing without a trip back to the Disneyland of yesteryear, and the creative powers behind Saving Mr. Banks transport us back to that magical place in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible without a time machine. And though the scenes in the world-famous park may be little more than a few fleeting moments in a movie punctuated by deep melancholy, they serve as a reminder of Disney's undying devotion to the power of imagination, as well as the magic that sometimes sprouts from humble beginnings. ‘Saving Mr. Banks,’ With Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |An Unbeliever in Disney World Search An Unbeliever in Disney World ‘Saving Mr. Banks,’ With Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson Saving Mr. Banks Directed by John Lee Hancock Biography, Comedy, Drama, History, Music PG-13 Movie Review: 'Saving Mr. Banks' The Times critic A. O. Scott reviews “Saving Mr. Banks.” By Gabe Johnson on Publish Date December 13, 2013. . Watch in Times Video » embed “Saving Mr.

Banks,” released by Disney, is a movie about the making of a Disney movie ( “Mary Poppins” ), in which Walt Disney himself (played by Tom Hanks ) is a major character. It includes a visit to Disneyland and, if you look closely, a teaser for its companion theme park in Florida (as yet unbuilt, when the story takes place). A large Mickey Mouse plush toy appears from time to time to provide an extra touch of humor and warmth. But it would be unfair to dismiss this picture, directed by John Lee Hancock from a script by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, as an exercise in corporate self-promotion. It’s more of a mission statement. It also revisits a proud moment in the company’s history: the making of “Mary Poppins,” at the time (the early ’60s) the most expensive live-action film Disney had produced, and eventually one of the most lucrative and beloved. More precisely, “Saving Mr. Banks” recounts the consummation, in business and creative terms, of Walt Disney’s long courtship of P. L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins, played with spirited fussiness by Emma Thompson. Fans of the book and the earlier movie will know that Mr.

Banks is the father of the children cared for by Mary Poppins, but even those entirely innocent of her previous literary and cinematic incarnations — if such people exist — will find this movie accessible and enjoyable. That is part of the Disney brand, of course: fun for everyone, with a spoonful of therapeutic medicine to help the sugar seem nutritious. The best parts of “Saving Mr. Banks” offer an embellished, tidied-up but nonetheless reasonably authentic glimpse of the Disney entertainment machine at work. Video Continue reading the main story None of this Southern California hospitality — or the friendliness of her driver (an unusually sunny Paul Giamatti) — melts Mrs. Travers’s determination to protect her creation from Disney’s whimsy. “I won’t have her turned into one of your silly cartoons,” she declares. Walt, aware that he does not yet have the rights to “Mary Poppins,” grants her script approval. She proceeds to torment the screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and the songwriting team of Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B. J. Novak) with objections about everything from casting to costumes to the grammar of the screenplay.

The audience, meanwhile, is treated to stripped-down, in-progress versions of songs from “Mary Poppins,” notably the infectious “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story But this is not just the tale of how the happy artisans of Hollywood and their boss soften the heart of an uptight Englishwoman (who was actually born in Australia). It is that, of course. Ms. Thompson has no peer when it comes to British stiffness, and Mr. Hanks is a master of evocative facial hair, American regional accents and earnest likability. His Missouri twang, mellowed by the California sun, is as friendly and reassuring as the real Walt Disney’s used to be every Sunday night when he introduced his television broadcast. Usually preceded by an off-screen cough — a premonition of the lung cancer that would kill him a couple of years after the “Mary Poppins” premiere — Walt is less a mogul than a kind and reliable daddy. He dotes on his intellectual properties (the mouse, the park, the picture) as if they were his children. He wants to adapt Mrs. Travers’s novel to keep a promise to his daughters. Photo Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks in "Saving Mr.

Banks," directed by John Lee Hancock. Credit Francois Duhamel/Walt Disney Pictures As it turns out — as we discover long before Walt does — the author’s own daddy issues are at the heart of her reluctance to play nice in the Disney creative sandbox. “Saving Mr. Banks” toggles between 1961 Burbank and a dusty village in Australia more than half a century before, when the future P. L. Travers was a little girl named Helen Goff (Annie Rose Buckley), nicknamed Ginty by her beloved father (Colin Farrell). An impish, imaginative fellow, he is also a hopeless alcoholic, barely able to hold onto his job managing a bank, and causing his poor wife (Ruth Wilson) no end of worry. Mr. Hancock ( “The Blind Side” ) integrates the two plots — the charming backstage comedy and the Down Under family melodrama — as smoothly as he can. As is often the case in movies structured this way, though, the elements distort rather than illuminate each other. The tale of Ginty and her dad is thick with dubious sentiment and leavened with glimmers of sensitive wisdom, but the light it casts on the grown-up Mrs.

Travers is harshly literal. The film asks us to believe that she is at once an astute storyteller and an emotional automaton entirely lacking in psychological insight. It also indulges in the common biographical fallacy of grounding adult creativity in childhood misery. Walt and Mrs. Travers have that in common, and Walt, in a late, decisive conversation, explains that their job as storytellers is to “restore order” to the chaos of life and infuse bleak realities with bright, happy colors. Imagination, in other words, is a form of repression. Joy is a kind of denial. Mary Poppins may have had a different idea: She is, on the page, committed to solving problems rather than wishing them away. But the Disney version has proved more powerful, more seductive and, it almost goes without saying, more profitable. “Saving Mr. Banks” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Briefly glimpsed smoking, and scenes of death and illness. Saving Mr. Banks Writers Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith Stars Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks Rating PG-13 Emma Thompson Plays 'Mary Poppins' Author P.L. Travers in Disney's Sav...

- AARP Sign up for the AARP Leisure Newsletter — and get movie reviews, great games and more delivered to you every month As Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers in Disney's Saving Mr. Banks , Thompson gets to be pretty scary herself. The movie chronicles the prickly writer's stormy relationship with studio founder Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks ) over the movie adaptation of her children's-book series, as well as the writer's troubled childhood in Australia. Thompson has declared the writer "the most difficult person I've ever played." Travers is depicted as being especially hard on the Sherman brothers, Robert and Richard (played by B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman ), the legendary songwriting team behind such Mary Poppins movie tunes as " Chim Chim Cher-ee " and " A Spoonful of Sugar ." "Whilst I have sympathy for her, she was very nasty to them," Thompson says. "She found it impossible to let go and allow her creation to be transformed in some way." The psychological story behind the Disney-Travers relationship is interesting, Thompson says.

Although working with Hanks — her on-screen adversary — was "heaven," she adds, they get to show "an unusual relationship between a man and a woman. It is quite peculiar — two bonkers artists at loggerheads." Saving Mr. Banks proved hair-raising for both Hanks and Thompson. He had to sprout a mustache; she had to submit to a perm, because she prefers not to wear wigs. "It was the worst thing ever," says the actress. "My hair designer swore to me it was not a perm and more like a little kink. But it was a vicious perm, and it was desperate." Thompson, who won a 1995 Academy Award for adapting Jane Austen 's Sense and Sensibility for the screen, is now writing the script for a third Bridget Jones movie and getting her voice in shape to perform a concert version of Sweeney Todd opposite Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel at Lincoln Center in New York next year. Does she think that Travers would have enjoyed Saving Mr. Banks more than Disney's Mary Poppins?

"She would have liked it," Thompson says, "but she would have taken issue and said about the Shermans, 'I was much nicer to them than that — and they deserved it anyway.' " Susan Wloszczyna writes about movies, entertainment and popular culture. Also of Interest Saving Mr. Banks (2013) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC Author P.L. Travers reflects on her childhood after reluctantly meeting with Walt Disney , who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen.

Director: a list of 44 titles created 02 Jan 2014 a list of 32 titles created 03 Jan 2014 a list of 37 titles created 08 Sep 2014 a list of 33 titles created 20 Mar 2015 a list of 25 titles created 11 Jan 2016 Title: Saving Mr. Banks (2013) 7.5/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 12 wins & 71 nominations. See more awards » Videos Edit Storyline When Walt Disney 's daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers ' Mary Poppins (1964), he made them a promise - one that he didn't realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine.

But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney's plans for the adaptation. For those two short weeks in 1961, Walt Disney pulls out all the stops. Armed with imaginative storyboards and chirpy songs from the talented Sherman brothers, Walt launches an all-out onslaught on P.L. Travers, but the prickly author doesn't budge. He soon begins to watch helplessly as Travers becomes increasingly immovable and the rights begin to move further away from his grasp. It is only when he reaches into his own childhood that Walt discovers ... Written by Walt Disney Pictures To bring Mary Poppins to life, he needs to work his magic. See more » Genres: Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including some unsettling images | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 20 December 2013 (USA) See more » Also Known As: El sueño de Walt See more » Filming Locations: $413,373 (USA) (13 December 2013) Gross: Did You Know?

Trivia Emma Thompson wrote and played a Mary Poppins-like character in Nanny McPhee (2005) and Nanny McPhee Returns (2010). See more » Goofs When Travers arrives in her hotel room, there are two Winnie the Pooh dolls among the gifts, showing Pooh in his redesigned appearance from the late 1960s. Walt Disney 's merchandise licensee did not yet have the toy rights to this character in 1961. See more » Quotes [first lines] Travers Goff : [voiceover] Winds in the east / Mist coming in / Like something is brewing / About to begin / Can't put me finger / On what lies in store / But I feel what's to happen / All happened before. See more » Crazy Credits At the beginning, the Disney logo is replaced by a special "Walt Disney Presents" logo with the old-fashioned segmented castle. See more » Connections Performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet Courtesy of Derry Music Company (Stoke on Trent, England) – See all my reviews Saving Mr Banks tells the story of Walt Disney's battle to get the rights to make Mary Poppins into a movie.

I wasn't expecting to like this but was completely blown away. It is beautifully put together, is hilarious in parts and very touching and emotional at other stages, but is not overly sappy or cheesy. There are some outstanding performances here. Emma Thompson plays Mrs Travers beautifully - a cantankerous and stubborn lady, yet you can't dislike her. Tom Hanks does a good job of playing Walt Disney - a tough role for anyone but he seems to suit it, so long as you can get past the terrible fake southern accent which is worse than Dick Van Dyke's attempts at an English accent in Mary Poppins. However the stand-out performance is, surprisingly, delivered by Colin Farrell as Mrs Travers' father. He brings amazing range and emotion to a character that is simultaneously a loving, sweet father and a man caged in by life and personal demons. Go see it for yourself when it comes out at the end of November. I'm looking forward to watching it again. 114 of 141 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Can Tom Hanks rescue Walt Disney from Saving Mr Banks? | Film | The Guardian Can Tom Hanks rescue Walt Disney from Saving Mr Banks?

2 / 5 stars The actor delivers another charmer, but this story about Mary Poppins is more atrocious than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr Banks. Photograph: Allstar/DISNEY/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar Share on Messenger Close "Uneasy wedlock". That's how PL Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins, described the two weeks she spent on the Disney lot in Burbank in 1961, during which Walt Disney attempted to prize the screen rights to her beloved creation from her vice-like grip. Those two weeks have now become a movie, Saving Mr Banks, which is directed by John Lee Hancock, starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, and brought to us by none other than Walt Disney Studios, which threw open their lot for filming, relaxed their hawk-like copyright control to allow songs from the original movie, and dug up a small woodland mammal last seen cavorting through Sleeping Beauty's forest, which clings to Emma Thompson's head throughout the entirety of the new film. Ah, actually I'm told it's a wig. My mistake.

And Thompson thought that the warts and false nose she had to wear for Nanny McPhee were bad. As PL Travers, she spends most of the film with her arms crossed, lips pursed, eyes scanning the room for disappointment, while a trio of Disney's men – Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford and BJ Novak – sing, dance and act out their ideas for her. Each one goes down like a popped balloon. Why does the house look so posh? Why must Mrs Banks be a suffragette? Why does Mr Banks have to break the children's kite? Thompson recently won points for her comments disparaging the roles she was offered in her 30s, "that basically involved saying to a man, 'Please don't go and do that brave thing. Don't! No, no, no, no, no!' That's a trope, the stock woman who says, 'Don't do the brave thing.'" This is well said, but is her role in Saving Mr Banks any improvement? Here she plays the woman who says to the man "No, no, no!

Don't make the much-loved children's classic that everyone knows you made anyway because they saw it with the kids on Netflix last week!" All she does is say no. She hates musical ditties, Dick Van Dyke, mustaches, children, California, cookies, stuffed animals, Jell-O and fun. The characterization is so monotonous that the film is halfway to being a full-on bore until Tom Hanks shows up as Disney, spreading his arms wide, and turning the twinkle in his eyes to full beam. "You. Cannot. Imagine. How. Delighted. I am. To finally meet you," he says, separating out each word as if personally charming each in turn. Travers visibly stiffens, while the audience goes limp as a pillow. What follows is basically a Burbank version of The Taming of The Shrew, in which Jell-O-disdaining Anglican frigidity attempts to keep its shape under the heat of the California charm offensive. You'll never guess who wins. The whole thing ought to have been called Revenging Mr Disney.

How they stretched such a one-sided account to over two hours is something of a mystery, although Hancock's previous film, the 2009 weepie The Blind Side, showed that he is a man who likes his fish-out-of-water tales to cast a long line. A small convoy of flashbacks trundle us back to Travers's unhappy childhood in the Australian outback, where her father is played by Colin Farrell with a light beading of sweat across his forehead, though its hard to say whether he perspires because the character is an alcoholic, about to be fired from his job at the bank, or because he's required to show up on a white horse and regale her with stories of myth and magic, wreathed in the mists of the Celtic twilight. A proud Irishman, Farrell must have been biting his fist between takes to get some of this stuff out of his mouth, and looks frankly relieved when he starts coughing blood onto his handkerchief. It's one of those things that always happens to people who are about to die in biopics, regardless of what kills them, be it road accident or, as here, a sudden attack of pneumonia.

The problem with these flashbacks is not that they are inaccurate – although in truth Travers' childhood was a lot colder and lonelier than is depicted here, with much less in the way of flouncy white linen – or that they push the running time up (how can a sudden attack of pneumonia ever spend so much time?), but that they rob Thompson of the delicate job of balancing our sympathies that would otherwise have been the prerogative of her performance. "I would like to make one thing quite clear," said Mary Poppins famously. "I never explain anything." The film, however, would like to explain everything – her aversion to pears, funfairs, made-up words, mustaches. The only thing left for Thompson to do is turn on the waterworks at the film's premiere, an event which in reality left her bearing down on Disney crossly, demanding the film's animated sequences be removed. "Pamela, that ship has sailed," he told her, before walking off. Instead we get tears and hugs with Mickey, with Travers "hurtling her way to a happy ending like a kamikaze", as she earlier voiced her fears about what Disney will do to Poppins. Well quite.

There are only two reasons to part with your hard-earned cash and see this film. The first is Bradley Whitford, whose powers of intelligent forbearance were long ago established by his role playing Josh Lyman in The West Wing, and who here summons a symphony of sighs and long-sufferance as the head of the trio dealing with Travers. The second is Tom Hanks. He has been diligently compiling an album of America's Greatest Hits – from the moon landings and D-Day, to the country's toys and one-hit wonder – so it was inevitable that he would one day wind up at the doorstep of Disney. He delivers a beautifully grooved performance, as much a cross between Disney and his creations as a portrait of the man himself. He doesn't play him – he animates him.

There's an illustrator's elegance of line to the way Hanks spins Disney in and out of rooms, as if blown in by his own east wind; together with a miniaturist's delight in uncovering the hucksterish glint beneath the bonhomie, whether handing out pre-signed autographs to fans or crouching down low to lock eyes with Travers, and impress upon her, in his beautiful low Kansas City purr, why he and he alone is the man for her governess. Hanks gives us everything – Disney's persistence, his optimism, his indefatigability, his bullying charm – and makes it look like something he dashed off before lunch. Coming so hot on the heels of his extraordinary turn in Captain Phillips , Hanks is in serious danger of delivering two of best performances of any screen actor this year. One of the great Hollywood careers is in a glorious second season right now. Catch him while you can. • Saving Mr Banks is out in US theatres on Friday. It was released in UK theatres on 29 November. Elsewhere on the Guardian So, How's Tom Hanks As Walt Disney in 'Saving Mr. Banks'?

| The Huffington Post So, How's Tom Hanks As Walt Disney in 'Saving Mr. Banks'? 11/08/2013 09:16 am ET Mike Ryan Senior Entertainment Writer, The Huffington Post Disney The first time you hear the about the concept of “Saving Mr. Banks,” you might be tempted to turn away. Not because Disney has made a movie that would cast Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. (He's excellent, in fact.) But the whole concept of Disney (the studio) making a movie that featured Disney (the man) might seem, at the very least, self-serving and, at worst, grossly indulgent. Stick with it, though. In 1964, “Mary Poppins” was released theatrically and became the biggest box office hit of the year. It was a grand success that almost never happened because the book’s author, P.L. Travers (played in "Saving Mr. Banks" by Emma Thompson), vehemently opposed almost everything Disney (the studio) and Walt Disney (the man) wanted to do with her beloved story. Travers fought unsuccessfully against the use of songs or animation in the film.

At one point, Travers even went so far as to demand that the color red not be in the film. Anywhere. “Saving Mr. Banks” is not so much a film about the making of “Mary Poppins” as much as it is a film about Walt Disney (Hanks) doing whatever he can to appease Travers in the hopes she will, eventually, trust him enough to sign over the rights to her beloved story so that a movie can be made. The story actually shifts between Travers’ interactions with Disney in the early ’60s and Travers’ childhood in Australia, circa 1907. The flashbacks are necessary to understand Travers’ motives with Walt Disney, but, boy, does it soak the fun out of the movie. These scenes are fine (and Colin Farrell does a particularly great job as Travers’ alcoholic father; never abusive, just a man with a terrible disease) but they do slow down the proceedings at Disney because the proceedings at Disney are just so darn entertaining.

Particularly entertaining is the group that Walt Disney taps to appease Travers -– namely her film’s co-writer Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and the songwriting brothers Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak, respectively). Whitford is a delight, dancing and shuffling his way through the role in an effort to do anything to make Travers happy. The Shermans almost act as a good cop/bad cop team, with Novak’s Sherman eventually being sent out to the hallway for daring to defy Mrs. Travers. (Of note: Jason Schwartzman has played earnest characters in the past, but always with a dash of irony. I’ve never seen Schwartzman play a guy this earnest before, and he’s actually really good at it.) And then there’s Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. I mean, look, there was no way Disney (the studio) was going to finance a movie that tarnished the legacy of its founder with anything that resembled some sort of true character study. But that’s not the point here – even though Disney is a major presence in “Saving Mr. Banks,” it's not a movie about Walt Disney.

And, in fact, Hanks takes the Disney character farther than you might expect. We see Disney so frustrated by Travers that the shrewd businessman is portrayed using some fairly underhanded tactics to get his way. Disney even goes so far as to not invite the unpredictable Travers to the “Mary Poppins” premiere in an effort to “protect the movie.” (In other words, if Travers hated the movie, there’s a better-than-average chance that Travers would have told the press in attendance that she hated the movie.) And hey: We even see Walt Disney smoke! (Just once, but, still.) The straightforward earnestness of “Saving Mr. Banks” is its greatest asset. It works tremendously. And it’s smart enough not to get too bogged down with the flashbacks to Travers’ alcoholic father – which, to be fair, does pay off eventually. But I did just find myself in those scenes thinking, "Why can’t we just be spending more time with Thompson, Hanks, Schwartzman, Novak and Whitford?" Because that’s the sweet part of the story. Then again, as the song says, a spoonful of sugar does help the story of a dying, alcoholic father go down.

Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter. Celebrity News & Photos

Question: Tom Hanks co-stars with Emma Thompson in Saving Mr Banks, what part does he play?
Answer: Walt Disney